Cowracer
12-29-2003, 06:51
My experience installing guages.
I orderd a set of Isspro EV (white face) guages with a full triple pillar from Gomers Diesel. They arrived 4 days later, despite being in the meat of the christmas shipping season.
The guages have a white face, with blue numbers and pointers. The numbers are backlit at night in a soothing cool blue color. Installation instructions were generally good, however I chose to do a couple of things differently.
The instructions state that the gauges simply press fit into the holes on the pillar, and no mounting brackets or hardware were needed. I did not think that this would hold securely, so I decided to use the hardware supplied with the gauges. It was an extremely tight fit, but eventually I was able to get the hardware installed.
I ran a positive and negative wire for the lamps, daisy-chaining them together. I them removed the factory a-pillar and placed the new pillar over it. I drilled holes for the attachment 'rivets' (more about these later), and I also made a large hole in the factory pillar behind each guage so I can pass through the wires and tubing. I also removed the drivers kick panel cover.
The pyro and trans temp units each have an amplifier box that needed mounting. The Trans Temp box was smaller and thinner and would fit perfectly in the cavity behind the kick panel. The Pyro box was larger, and I mounted it under the dash. I attached the positive and negative leads to the power tap panel under the dash and hooked up the lights to a panel light circuit as well.
Each amplifier had a cable with a connecter that needed to be snaked up to the pillar. I came up a channel next to the dashboad that is revealed when you remove the pillar and kick panel. These cables have plugs which are indentical, so make sure you mark which is which. After connecting each to the proper gauge, I attached the new pillar using the supplied push in 'rivets'. These rivets are worthless, and I will replace them with pop rivets in the next day or so.
Each amplifier also had a cable to go out to the sensor. This proved the most challenging part of the install. After much searching, I could not find a way to get the cables out of the cab. Finally, (In desparation) I drilled a 5/8 hole in the floorboards, next to the sidewall just before the crease where the floor flattens out. There was 2 layers to go through, so I used to grommets to protect the wires. A alrger hole would have been helpful, but I made it work. There is probably a better way to do this, I just couldn't find it.
Under the truck, my heart sank when I noticed that I had no where to mount the trans sending unit. Eventually, a close inspection revealed a plug just behind the shift linkage. I removed this plug, and saw that it was covered in ATF, and had the same threads and overall shape as the tip of the sending unit. I screwed the sending unit in there and made a mental not to watch the operation of the tranny closely, just in case.
I had a buddy weld the fitting for the pyro into the crossover pipe, about 4 inches below the manifold on the drivers side. The thermocouple was screwed in, and wires attached.
The boost and pyro worked immedeatly upon starting the engine. I was concerned that the tranny temp did not move at all. Finally after about 20 minutes of driving, it climbed off the stop.
The gauges look excetionally cool, however they are difficult to read at times. Orange pointers would have been better. The lighting in the boost guage is uneven, with a bright spot at the top of the gauge, and it gets pretty dark at the 9 and 3 o'clock positions the other 2 were ok. The boost gauge only had one lamp, where the others had 2.
At certain lighting conditions (twilight), The ambient light seems to match the backlights for the gauges perfectly, making the numbers almost invisible. A strange effect to say the least.
Would I recommend them? If you are looking for "cool" yet functional gauges then yes, but if you want easy to read, no nonsense gauges, then go with a dark faced gauge.
Tim
I orderd a set of Isspro EV (white face) guages with a full triple pillar from Gomers Diesel. They arrived 4 days later, despite being in the meat of the christmas shipping season.
The guages have a white face, with blue numbers and pointers. The numbers are backlit at night in a soothing cool blue color. Installation instructions were generally good, however I chose to do a couple of things differently.
The instructions state that the gauges simply press fit into the holes on the pillar, and no mounting brackets or hardware were needed. I did not think that this would hold securely, so I decided to use the hardware supplied with the gauges. It was an extremely tight fit, but eventually I was able to get the hardware installed.
I ran a positive and negative wire for the lamps, daisy-chaining them together. I them removed the factory a-pillar and placed the new pillar over it. I drilled holes for the attachment 'rivets' (more about these later), and I also made a large hole in the factory pillar behind each guage so I can pass through the wires and tubing. I also removed the drivers kick panel cover.
The pyro and trans temp units each have an amplifier box that needed mounting. The Trans Temp box was smaller and thinner and would fit perfectly in the cavity behind the kick panel. The Pyro box was larger, and I mounted it under the dash. I attached the positive and negative leads to the power tap panel under the dash and hooked up the lights to a panel light circuit as well.
Each amplifier had a cable with a connecter that needed to be snaked up to the pillar. I came up a channel next to the dashboad that is revealed when you remove the pillar and kick panel. These cables have plugs which are indentical, so make sure you mark which is which. After connecting each to the proper gauge, I attached the new pillar using the supplied push in 'rivets'. These rivets are worthless, and I will replace them with pop rivets in the next day or so.
Each amplifier also had a cable to go out to the sensor. This proved the most challenging part of the install. After much searching, I could not find a way to get the cables out of the cab. Finally, (In desparation) I drilled a 5/8 hole in the floorboards, next to the sidewall just before the crease where the floor flattens out. There was 2 layers to go through, so I used to grommets to protect the wires. A alrger hole would have been helpful, but I made it work. There is probably a better way to do this, I just couldn't find it.
Under the truck, my heart sank when I noticed that I had no where to mount the trans sending unit. Eventually, a close inspection revealed a plug just behind the shift linkage. I removed this plug, and saw that it was covered in ATF, and had the same threads and overall shape as the tip of the sending unit. I screwed the sending unit in there and made a mental not to watch the operation of the tranny closely, just in case.
I had a buddy weld the fitting for the pyro into the crossover pipe, about 4 inches below the manifold on the drivers side. The thermocouple was screwed in, and wires attached.
The boost and pyro worked immedeatly upon starting the engine. I was concerned that the tranny temp did not move at all. Finally after about 20 minutes of driving, it climbed off the stop.
The gauges look excetionally cool, however they are difficult to read at times. Orange pointers would have been better. The lighting in the boost guage is uneven, with a bright spot at the top of the gauge, and it gets pretty dark at the 9 and 3 o'clock positions the other 2 were ok. The boost gauge only had one lamp, where the others had 2.
At certain lighting conditions (twilight), The ambient light seems to match the backlights for the gauges perfectly, making the numbers almost invisible. A strange effect to say the least.
Would I recommend them? If you are looking for "cool" yet functional gauges then yes, but if you want easy to read, no nonsense gauges, then go with a dark faced gauge.
Tim